The Long Way Home

A late autumn afternoon – the smell
of smouldering leaves, Chigwell Green,
transported me back to another place
another time...another life ago.
A fire burned in a group of allotments...
it was almost mid November; pitch
dark then, by at least four o’clock.
A pall of smoke – dark and hanging low
in a frowning sky, fretted with crows.

Orange flames leapt high – licked
a nearby paling fence; I looked
for my brother amongst the crowd
of men, but I couldn’t pick him out.
They were jeering, chanting; words
beyond my ken. I knelt down;
the soil, damp and peaty. Grabbed
a handful of leaves, stuffed them
in my pocket, and as the fire died
its death, took the long way home.